


The Crossword

by Jolie_Black



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Backstory, Canon Gay Relationship, Developing Relationship, Epistolary, Falling In Love, Flirting, Friendship, Getting to Know Each Other, Innuendo, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, Longing, Love Letters, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Photographs, Romance, Secret Relationship, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29285358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolie_Black/pseuds/Jolie_Black
Summary: Do you remember the morning when everyone at Downton was running around like headless chickens getting everything ready to receive their King, and you were sitting in the empty servants' hall, doing a blessed crossword as if history wasn't unfolding right above your head? That's what you are to me, Thomas, and that's what I'll try to do. Solve the crossword puzzle that is you.Thomas and Richard after the Royal visit. A love story in letters.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 56
Kudos: 80
Collections: Well I love you: Valentines for Thomas Barrow





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a fill for prompt No. 6 of the 2021 "Well, I love you" Valentines challenge on the Thomas Barrow Discord, "What are you smiling about?"
> 
> You can find the deleted Downton movie scene of Thomas doing the crossword [here](https://thomasbarrowlesbian.tumblr.com/post/189624447246/thomas-and-richard-deleted-scene-from-the).

_Downton, 22nd July 1927_

_Dear Mr Ellis,_

_I am writing to thank you for your advice and assistance during the days of the Royal Visit at Downton. I learned a great many things over the course of your stay, and I wish it could have been longer so I could have profited even more from your superior experience and your confident handling of the various crises, great and small, that occurred throughout this period. The Royal Visit has left an indelible impression on my mind and heart, and the memories of it will stay with me for a long time and serve to lift my spirits whenever the need arises. I am looking forward to renewing our acquaintance at the earliest opportunity, and remain_

_Yours faithfully,_

_Th. Barrow._

Thomas crumples up the paper, takes aim and lobs it in the fireplace. There's no fire burning in there, of course, on this mild summer evening, but he feels the gesture is warranted. 

He's trying to be clever, and cautious, and he's sure that the man he already thinks of as Richard would catch his true meaning. But the words sound hollow in his ears, stilted, terribly impersonal. It could be months, it could be _next year_ until they get a chance to meet again. Is this really how they'll be talking to each other until then? 

While Thomas still agonises over what to say and how to say it, Richard solves the problem by making a bold first move. They seem to have a pattern there already. 

_Somewhere between Doncaster and Newark, 22nd July 1927_

_Dear Thomas,_

_if my writing is a bit wonky, it's because I'm on the train. But I'm worried that once I'm back in London I won't find the time to write right away, and I don't want to keep you waiting longer than need be. I want you to know that I haven't felt as alive in a long time as I've felt in the past few days, and I owe that to you and the fine people in your charge._

_Let's not waste any more time. We've already wasted a whole evening that could have gone very differently, if it hadn't been for me and the one vice of mine – tardiness - that I am genuinely ashamed of. There are so many things that I don't know but want to know, so many things I didn't say but wanted to say. And until there's another way, pen and paper will have to do._

_Do you remember the morning when everyone at Downton was running around like headless chickens getting everything ready to receive their King, and you were sitting in the empty servants' hall, doing a blessed crossword as if history wasn't unfolding right above your head? That's what you are to me, Thomas, and that's what I'll try to do. Solve the crossword puzzle that is you. I've figured out a few words already, of course, some of them intersecting, others not. The rest is blank spaces that I want to fill in as soon as may be. Tell me when we can start. I'm champing at the bit._

_Richard_

And so they begin, their conversations on paper, back and forth over the next weeks and months, sometimes every day, sometimes a couple a week, sometimes fewer, when their respective duties don't leave them enough time to get into much detail. But it's a steady stream nonetheless, and quite unlike any other letters Thomas has ever written or received. Then again, Richard himself is unlike anyone else Thomas has ever spoken to, spent time around, conspired with... or touched with his lips.

And while Richard may be the one who invented the template and set the tone, Thomas gets to ask the first question. Because this is not going to be a one-way street if he can help it. 

_One across: How do you even know my first name?_

_Most butlers I've met have two faces,_ Richard replies, _just like that Roman god of transitions, doorways and passages. One face for upstairs, one for downstairs. But you have three – one for upstairs and two for downstairs. I don't pretend to understand how exactly it works, how you can be both Mr Barrow-in-that-chair-at-the-head-of-the-table and Thomas-you-should-really-take-a-day-off to the same people at the same time. All I know is that I find it delightful. And don't say it's just because you've all worked together for a long time. The same would be true of a lot of other great houses, and yet in many of them, people would barely know what their butler's Christian name is, let alone use it, and within earshot of a visiting stranger, too._

Obvious, really. Thomas had to nick Richard's fancy calling card to learn that he was Richard in the first place. All Richard had to do was prick up his ears in the servants' hall. Thomas' first impulse is to be embarrassed, but Richard disagrees. _I'd say you're lucky to live and work in a place like that,_ he concludes, and he sounds downright envious. 

Thomas thinks back to the times when the opposite was true; when Downton felt like a prison with invisible walls and bars that he couldn't escape from, no matter how hard he tried; or when Downton tried to shake him off like some irritating fly while he was hanging on by the skin of his teeth. 

_Lucky is one way of putting it,_ he writes back. _We're complicated, the Abbey and I. Love it, hate it, can't live without it, apparently - way too much history, way too much baggage._

 _Just like any other long marriage then,_ Richard replies, proving that he can actually grin in writing. 

* * *

Two (both across and down) is all about Richard's work and how he's busy fulfilling the destiny of every male member of the Ellis family for the past two hundred years, which is to squander the best years of their youth in an apprenticeship with the best of their trade in Savile Row and then in service to someone who's at least a Royal Highness, until they finally return to join the family business in York. Richard is the first Ellis in a century who has scooped an actual ruling monarch, but…

 _… that's maybe a bit unfair to my ancestors_ , he concedes, _considering that for sixty-three years of the past one hundred, there was no ruling monarch who could in all conscience be dressed by a man._

Three, and Richard turns the conversation back to Thomas. 

_Three down: If you're from a family of clockmakers, how come you went into service in the first place?_

_By accident._ Maybe Thomas was a little afraid of the question, but he can't deny Richard the right to ask it. _I was nineteen and sitting in the third class waiting room at Birmingham New Street with nothing but the clothes on my back, a few shillings in my pocket, a bag of tools at my feet and the vague hope that if I could make it to London, someone there might take me on. There was a man sitting opposite me who was trying and failing to wind his watch. He shook it angrily, and I heard that the mainspring had come loose. I offered to fix it for him, and we got talking. I told him of my plans, and he laughed, said that cities like London ate striplings like me for breakfast, and advised me to sell my good looks (his words, not mine) where they'd profit me more than on some seedy street corner in Soho. He was a manservant, he said, valet to an earl, and their household always had room for another footman. There was no one to warn me what exactly I was getting myself into, and at that point I was willing to say yes to anything that gave me a roof over my head and four square meals a day. And I proved to be quite good at what I was supposed to do, if I say so myself. So that was that, and I've somehow never managed to get out again, though not for lack of trying._

 _I'm sorry there was nobody back at home who stood up for you,_ Richard writes back, putting his finger right on the crux of the matter in spite of Thomas' best efforts to skip that particular part of the tale _. I know it's a common experience, and I actually feel guilty sometimes that it wasn't like that for me. I know I'm extremely lucky in that way, and endlessly grateful to my own parents, but I'm often at a loss what to say to those who weren't._

 _I don't actually want you to say anything,_ Thomas replies after pondering his answer for a while. _I'm just glad it is the way it is for you. You would not be you if your family had treated you differently, and that would be my loss, as much as anyone else's._

His loss, emphatically. Richard is such a marvel to him precisely because he is what he is without being so… marred by it.

* * *

Step by tentative step, their letters become substitutes not only for the conversations they haven't yet had in person, but also for what all their five senses could have told them if they'd got more of a chance. This takes Thomas a while to get used to – it's not something he'd put into words, normally – but he eventually comes to love it when it happens. There's a particular kind of intimacy to these exchanges. 

_Four down: Do you ever sing,_ Richard asks, _and is your singing voice pitched higher or lower than your speaking voice?_

_As I child, I was always told that singing was for sissies, but I do enjoy it now when I get the chance._

I'm the tenor to your baritone, is what Thomas really wants to say, his mind briefly spinning out of control with thoughts of their voices joining together in a very unchaste kind of duet. 

_I love music,_ Richard replies when Thomas bounces the question back to him. _But I don't sing nearly as much as I used to. Six years of York Minster School are the best I can offer in that department._

Thomas raises his eyebrows at this particular piece of information. _I didn't exactly have you down as a choirboy_ , he can’t resist remarking. _Should I prepare for a disappointment?_

 _I will have you know that choirboys are routinely underestimated,_ Richard protests immediately. _I learned a lot of things during that time, about myself as much as about anything else. I certainly discovered the beauty of duets. I've much preferred them to solos ever since._

Touché. 

* * *

Five is all about the War, but Thomas keeps it brief. Their experiences don't really match up, and Thomas has learned over the years that there are some things that you just can't explain to someone who hasn't lived through them himself. Not that Richard had much fun aboard HMS Collingwood at Jutland, either, standing on deck behind the King's second son and looking on while ship after ship around them blew up and went down, nearly ten thousand men lost in the course of a single day and night.

The one thing they do share, and which they of course share with everybody else who's come through alive, is the eternal question, _why them and not me?_ Needless to say, neither of them has an answer. 

They don't dwell on it. 

Richard's turn again, _Six across: What's your hair like when you leave it alone?_

_I don't know, floppy, limp,_ Thomas replies honestly. _It gets in my eyes and itches and I admit I don't like it much._

_Is it even long enough to get in your eyes?_

_It used to be. Maybe one of these days I'll be brave enough to send you a picture. Say something about yours._

Because that's a memory that Thomas loves to revisit, the silky-soft fuzz of short hair on the back of Richard's head in that very brief moment when Thomas felt it under his fingertips. 

_There's nothing to tell that you don't know already, I'm afraid. Bit wavy. Common ordinary brown._

There's nothing common or ordinary about you, Richard Ellis. 

* * *

Thomas looks through his desk drawers for old pictures, and the first he unearths is the one they tacked onto his travel documents when he went to the States with Lord Grantham five years ago. He promptly shoves it back inside. Richard will want nothing to do with this strange, pale creature that had simmering resentment oozing out of every pore.

Thomas also finds a clipping from a local newspaper that he's kept, dating more than a year back, "A Change at the Helm of Downton Abbey". But sending Richard that one is out of the question, too. Thomas was still so new to his position then, and so nervous on the day the reporter came, that he made the mistake of trying to hide his insecurity by looking extra stern and forbidding in the picture they took of him and Carson side by side outside the front door. 

_The result was, of course, exactly as terrible as you would expect,_ he justifies his reluctance to let Richard see that one, too. _"Straight out of a gothic horror story," our cook said when she thought I was out of earshot, and unfortunately, I agree._

Besides, the article itself expounds Carson's decades-long career in such adulatory detail that Thomas suspects it was dictated word for word by Lady Mary herself, and why would Richard be interested in that. Thomas himself gets only one quick mention in the final paragraph, and they've managed to misspell his name, too.

 _... although being named after the homestead of a sylvan animal is maybe marginally better than being named after a two-wheeled cart._

_To be honest, I always thought your Barrow was the prehistoric burial mound rather than the cart,_ Richard writes back. _But if you insist on losing a fair amount of mystique and being Mr Burrow from now on, I'll get used to that, too._

I have a feeling that I could get used to being Mr Ellis, Thomas wants to say so badly that it hurts, but there is a limit to what he can put in a letter without literally risking both their necks, he knows that well enough. Besides, it seems a little forward to even think such things, after knowing Richard for less than three weeks. 

_I can't say I'm keen on being Mr Burrow,_ he jokes instead. _But I can't deny that I would prefer you to think of me as a fox rather than a mouldy skeleton._

_A fox? I was thinking a bunny. With soft, fluffy ears._

Richard clearly has a different definition of "forward" than most people. 

* * *

_Are you brave enough by now?_ Richard revisits the topic of photographs a few weeks later. _Or are you starving me on purpose?_

Thomas has conveniently forgotten by this point that he has as good as promised Richard a picture. The truth is, he simply has no recent one, apart from the grainy newspaper image of the Butler From Hell. And the idea of going to have a new one taken for this particular purpose, of sitting on that stool at the photographer's trying to look his very best, makes Thomas highly uncomfortable. Sure, he wouldn't be the first young-ish man (very –ish, it sometimes feels these days) whom the people at the studio would ease through the process with indulgent smiles and well-meant jokes, but he'd just… really rather not. 

He's still putting it off when the perfect solution presents itself, out of the blue and almost entirely without Thomas' doing. It's a particularly hectic morning in the servants' hall, and somehow Albert manages to collide head-on with the kitchen maid who was taking the breakfast things back out on her tray. Apart from the tray and the maid herself, nothing survives crashing to the floor. While Albert picks up the crying girl and Daisy comes marching over from the kitchen with broom and dustpan, Thomas spots something interesting among the crash victims. It's the small framed photograph that has hung on the wall between the two door openings for over a year. It's a mystery how that fell down as well, but the glass is broken now, and if he's quick enough… 

"I'll see if that can be saved," he says and stoops down to retrieve it from among the debris. On closer examination, the picture itself is in perfect order. Under cover of the general hullabaloo, Thomas bins the shattered glass, leaves the frame for Andy to glue back together later, and diverts the photograph to his pantry. 

He'd never have stolen it off the wall just like that, as there would have been no way to replace it without arousing suspicion. But this opportunity is too good to miss. 

"Sorry, the picture's got cuts and kinks all over now," he says to Andy when the footman frowns at the ruin of the frame later that morning. "But I'll write to Brancaster and ask for another print. I'll pay, if necessary." 

Thomas looks at it for some long minutes before he puts it in a cover to send to London that night. It's a bit of a wrench letting it go, even if he's fairly sure they can get a replacement. He's spent many a moment casually lingering in the doorway of the servants' hall for no other reason than to get some joy from looking at it. 

_New Year's Eve 1925, Lady Edith's wedding,_ Thomas provides some context for Richard. _Lord Hexham's best man made the rounds of the great hall that night with one of those clever little handheld German cameras, capturing memories for the new Marchioness to take to Brancaster with her. She sent us this one afterwards, as a memento._

The best man was nothing if not methodical, so although technically just a visitor at the time, Thomas found himself thrust in among the downstairs ranks for an impromptu group shot. The Bateses are missing from it, having been too busy being parents at the time. But everyone else is there, looking very cheery with the exception of Carson, who had already blurted out his resignation at this point. Consequently Thomas himself, in the centre of the back row, is grinning like a fool, an arm around Andy on one side and Mr Mason, of all people, on the other.

 _It's a lovely memory of Downton and its people,_ Richard writes in acknowledgment. _Thank you for letting me have it. I think I recognise almost everyone. Nice to see Mrs H. smiling, since I only know her breathing a constant stream of fire. Seven down: Who is the bearded gent next to you? I don't recall meeting him._

 _That's our first footman's father-in-law,_ Thomas explains, then remembers that it's still soon-to-be father-in-law, then remembers that's not technically true, either. What do you even call that relationship? Father-in-law once removed? Not that it matters, so Thomas starts again. _That's the father of a man whom I used to treat very shabbily indeed for no reason at all, and who died in the War before I could apologise. I don't know how his father even manages to talk to me civilly, but I seem to be a bit of a Collector of Undeserved Mercies._

_That sounds almost like a court title,_ Richard remarks.

Seriously, who does the man think he is, the King's dresser or the King's jester? 

Talking of undeserved mercies, it's a thing of pure beauty that accompanies Richard's response. Thomas didn't even have to ask.

Not a staged portrait, either, but an everyday moment, Richard and Mr Miller at work together in a dressing room at the palace, one of His Majesty's uniform coats laid out on the table before them. Grey-haired Mr Miller watches while Richard leans over the garment. His hands are busy pinning some medal or ribbon onto it, but his eyes look up straight into the lens. The light in the room is strangely soft, no sharp angles or cast shadows anywhere, and the smile on Richard's face is softer still. 

What are you smiling about? Thomas wonders, but he doesn't ask. It's a far too pleasant fantasy to imagine that it could have been Thomas himself standing in that doorway and taking the picture, "Richard?".

The photograph is too precious to crease, of course, so carrying it around in his breast pocket, close to his heart where it belongs, is not an option. But Thomas takes it out of its hiding place often and sits on the side of his narrow bed holding it in his hands, in the mornings or at bedtime, drinking in Richard's smile until he feels ready to face another busy day or another solitary night. Sometimes he puts it on the pages of an open book to look at while he's at his desk writing his letters, left hand under the cover, ready to flip it shut the moment someone enters. He dreams of a different world where he could put the picture in a silver frame and place it right there on his desk for all the world to see. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 to follow on Sunday. Apparently I can't do short to save my life.


	2. Chapter 2

It's the end of August, and the Grantham household are getting ready to relocate to London for a few days to catch the end of the Season. Tickets for the Proms have been secured, the Hexhams are scheduled to come up from Brancaster for the occasion, and Thomas barely has five minutes a day to continue talking to Richard in writing, not that it matters if they can do it again in person so soon.

 _But I suppose I'm lucky they're taking me at all,_ he writes in a quick note just before bedtime a few days ahead of departure. _I had quite some misgivings that they might have got used to having one butler for everyday use and one for special occasions, and wouldn't trust me to remember my way around the London house, either._

Richard's response surprises him by sounding almost angry.

_Thomas, please stop thinking of yourself as The Butler Who Couldn't Handle The Royal Visit this instant. You're The Butler Who Was Spared The Royal Visit. No, don't argue, just listen to me for a moment._

Thomas feels rather caught and reads on biting his lip.

 _In my experience – and I've been part of this travelling circus long enough to know,_ Richard says, _there are two different ways a butler can react to what you so aptly called the Royal invasion. Most of them consider being pushed aside and crowded out of their own realm the high point of their careers, as well as their sacred duty as loyal subjects, and can't wait for it to happen. Others – far fewer – get a bit territorial and take some time to get used to the idea that bending over backwards to accommodate a conquering force is supposed to be an honour. But they all do, in the end. Nobody wins against us, ever, and it can only end in tears if you try. So imagine my intense disquiet, that day when we of the advance guard first came to Downton and Mr W. outlined to your assembled servants' hall how these things are done. A reluctant butler may survive a Royal visit with his feathers ruffled, but you, my friend, weren't just reluctant – I barely had to watch your very eloquent face for two minutes to know that you were going to be endless trouble. And what was worse, so also was everyone else under your command. No voice of reason anywhere, no calming influence, nothing to stop our visit turning into a total disaster with an unconscionable number of casualties, all on your side of course. I found myself wishing you out of the line of fire for your own sake long before I had a personal stake in the matter. So it was as if in answer to my prayers when I heard, the next day, that your own family had plucked you from the jaws of that particular beast literally at the last moment. I do not exaggerate when I say that Mr W. and Mrs W. between them have ruined careers, and by extension lives, with just one well-placed hint that a local butler or housekeeper was found lacking in respect or compliance with the Royal Household's needs and requests. Even an earl would find it difficult to hold on to a servant with such a tarnished reputation. So as if your family knew that – and I assume they did – they brought that jaded old warhorse back out of retirement instead, who would be safe from any such repercussions, and I dared to breathe again. You know the old saying that the only things a tree can do in a storm is to bend or break. I was glad, glad, Thomas, that you had to do neither._

Thomas takes a deep breath himself at this point. Richard's words do put things in a different light, and maybe he will stop licking his wounds one of these days, if he can indeed manage to convince himself that Lady Mary's motives for demoting him were quite as benevolent as Richard makes them sound. But what really touches his heart, more than anything else, is that Richard should _care_ so much – that he should have cared even then, when they'd barely exchanged a look or a word yet, let alone known _…_

 _Of course, I underestimated the sheer power of you as a collective,_ Richard concludes. _You did win, which must have been a first since 1066. But you couldn't know that you would. So you can keep slamming doors all you like, Thomas, you will not convince me that Lady M. getting you out of harm's way like that was a bad idea._

That last remark, the one about the door, does come as a surprise. And so does the fact that the chocolate mousse that Daisy had made for the upstairs dessert on the eve of their departure contained eggs that had gone off. So the house in London remains shuttered after all, the Prom tickets expire, and when Thomas staggers back to his feet, still pale and weak after twenty-four hours of hearty bouts of sickness, his chance to see Richard again any time soon is gone.

 _Eight across: How come you caught that bug when the mousse was for upstairs?_ Richard muses in an ill-fated attempt to cheer them both up after this disappointment. _The only explanation that I have involves accusations of both envy and gluttony, which I hesitate to make without further evidence._

 _Never mind that,_ Thomas grumbles back. _When I commit a cardinal sin, I usually pick one that will be fun for everyone involved. Eight down: How do you_ _know about the slammed door?_

 _Is that a serious question?_ Richard asks, amusement playing around his words just as it would play around his lips. _That bang rang up and down the whole county for a week afterwards. Even HRH's butler at Harewood wanted to know how his Downton counterpart managed to keep his job after walking out on his own lordship like that. I told him that you were a Butler With Teeth, and seeing what rare beasts those are, the Granthams would be mad not to keep you; I certainly would. Can I keep you?_

Always and forever, Thomas feels his heart sing, even though he should probably be a bit worried about his sudden dubious fame.

 _Keep me at your own risk,_ he warns Richard, only half in jest. _I know I bite sometimes, and I don't restrict that to people with titles, either._

 _I'm not afraid of your teeth,_ Richard assures him. _Although I occasionally allow myself to picture a very, very self-indulgent scenario indeed in which I'd want to whisper to you to be careful with them._

Honestly, Thomas reflects when his cheeks have stopped burning and his pulse has slowed down again, if Richard was in the bloody Navy _,_ then where on earth did he learn to fire and hit like a sniper?

 _I'm sorry,_ Richard writes again on the very next day, in a hasty scribble that renders the urgency of his words visible. _Now I'm worried that I may have overstepped the mark. I hate not being able to see your expression, not being able to sense what's welcome and what may not be. I'd hate to be pushy or disrespectful or just plain impertinent. Give me some kind of pointer, please. Sometimes I feel that I know you much better already than the people I'm surrounded with every day, but of course in some ways I don't know you and your likes and dislikes at all._

 _Here's your pointer,_ Thomas responds, feeling wonderfully reckless. _Words are one thing, but I'm sure the day will come when I'll get a real taste of what you call your impertinence, and as far as I'm concerned it can't come soon enough. But you might want to stop talking about local butlers bending over backwards to accommodate you now. I'll get lumbago if I linger over that particular image any longer than I already have._

_Lumbago? Really? Well, I don't want you to strain your back, obviously, but I admit that I'd be hoping for a more gratifying outcome than that._

_It is an appealing suggestion for sure_ , Thomas concedes. _But it sounds rather ambitious all the same. I'm not sure I'm flexible enough to accept._

_Physically or mentally?_

Both, you cheeky beggar. Now convince me otherwise.

* * *

_By the way, I'd still like to hear why you changed your hairstyle,_ Richard reminds Thomas a little later. _I notice it every time I look at the picture you sent me. You used to part it on the other side. So, nine across: What's the story?_

_I lost a bet. Well, it was more a dare than a bet, really. I'd teased Lady G.'s maid that she wouldn't have the guts to bob her hair, back when the women all started doing it. She replied that I was one to talk, not having changed my hair once in the past ten years, neither. Which was a lie, but still rankled. So we made a wager that if she'd dare do something drastically different with hers, I'd have to do something drastically different with mine. As you saw when you were here, I badly underestimated her spirit of adventure, and paid the price._

Of course this isn't the full story. It wasn't so much a dare as a veritable conspiracy, and Thomas completely fell for it. He'd been back at Downton and installed in his new position only for a couple of weeks when he struck that silly deal with Phyllis. And it took him days to realise, after returning from the barber looking indeed rather different than he had before, that this was about so much more than just a new haircut. But it had helped enormously, and of course she'd known that it would. Thomas is just not yet ready to confide to Richard why exactly he so badly needed a fresh start with all of them in the first place.

 _Buy her flowers and say they're from me,_ Richard writes back, as if he guesses the full story anyway. _Well, don't, obviously, but you know what I mean._

 _I'm glad to hear you like the new style better,_ Thomas replies, trying to steer the conversation back into safer waters again. _It certainly saves me time in the mornings._

 _You know how I'd like your hair best?_ Richard says to that. _Plastered to your forehead, dripping with sweat, and me to blame._

Again, Thomas really should have heard the whistle of the bullet before it hit him squarely in the chest. No safe waters anywhere with this man. It's glorious.

 _I'm game if you are,_ Thomas challenges him as soon as he's got his breath back, trying to sound a lot more nonchalant than he feels about this. _Do your best._

_Oh, I will._

The next letter that arrives is typewritten, rather than by hand as usual, and it conspicuously bears a postmark from a part of London far away from the palace, as well as no sender's name on the cover. It also doesn't start with the words _Dear Thomas_ , as Richard's letters usually do, even the ones that have some daring innuendo at the bottom of page three. No, this one begins with the words _My Love_ , and that alone sends a shiver down Thomas' spine. They're clearly on a different plane now, entering new, as yet uncharted territory, and Thomas is in equal parts alarmed and enchanted.

 _My Love,_ Richard writes, _you ask me to do my best as if I would ever dream of offering you anything less. Consider me an expert, actually, because I've imagined this so often already that I could go through all the steps involved with my eyes closed, if that wouldn't deprive me of a beautiful view. Because I'll be looking all the time, make no mistake about that. I'll want to see all there is to see, your face, your eyes, your lips… I want to hear you, too, I want you to whisper all the things you want me to do to you, I want to hear the hitch in your breath when I hurry to comply, I want to feel you tense and shiver with anticipation and then melt into my touch when -_

Thomas has read exactly this far in a glowing rush when the door of his pantry bursts open with barely a knock, and the stable boy appears in the doorway, gesticulating wildly.

"Mr Barrow, please come quick, it's Miss Sybbie! The pony threw her, there's blood all over, Nanny's in a state, and we think she's broken her - "

By which time Thomas has dropped everything and they're already out in the passage.

" - and Mr Branson's away on the estate somewhere with Lady Mary, and Mr Talbot's in York, and Mr Stark's taken Her Ladyship God knows where - "

Phyllis and Andy come hurrying anxiously towards them from the servants' hall. John Bates hovers in the background. Relieved to see them, Thomas cuts right across the boy's prattle. "Call the hospital. Miss Sybbie's broken her arm. Make sure Dr Clarkson knows we're coming. We'll be there as fast as we can."

There are _four_ children howling at the top of their voices when Thomas and the boy arrive at the paddock behind the stable yard, and one of them certainly has a good reason to. The cut above Sybbie's right eye bleeds spectacularly, but it doesn't look like more than a superficial laceration. Her arm is another matter, swelling and changing colour fast.

Fashioning a makeshift sling from the skirt of Nanny's apron, which she readily sacrifices for the purpose, is the work of a moment. Quickly finding someone who both knows the theory of driving a car and can boast a left hand with enough strength in it to shift the gear stick is the bigger problem. Luckily Lord Grantham himself comes striding towards them in hat and coat already when they're heading back to the house, Thomas carrying the pale and whimpering girl in his arms and Nanny gently herding the distressed remainder of her flock.

It's hours before they're back from the hospital, Sybbie provided with three stitches and an impressive plaster cast, and Tom Branson reassured that this was never a matter of life and death to start with. It's later still when Thomas finally returns to his pantry to finish whatever it was he was busy with when the accident occurred. And it's only then that he realises.

The letter. Richard's letter. Like a fool, like a complete and utter _idiot_ , he's left it lying openly on the desk for all the world to see. And what's worse, he's expressly told the others to go in there and use the telephone, too, as if to make sure it should be found.

Thomas' hands shake when he pushes the door open, but he doesn't even need to rush across to check. He likes his desk tidy, and he can see at a single glance from the doorway that the letter, as well as its cover, is gone.

His stomach turns over, and he feels the bile rising in his throat. He can't believe he's done this, that he's ruined it all, ruined them both, with an utterly moronic and utterly unforgivable beginner's mistake like that. For a short moment, Thomas wants to tell himself that it can't be that bad, that if there are no names and the details are nebulous enough, he might get away with pretending that the letter was written by a woman, embarrassing though it would still be. But with his record, who would buy that story?

Thomas is reeling by the time he reaches his desk, trying but failing to control his breathing. His heart is stumbling in his chest like a drunkard, and his throat is so tight that he can barely swallow.

What will happen now? Will they take the damning piece of paper straight to the police? Or to Lord Grantham, so he can tell Thomas he's covered for his wayward butler once too often already? Or will they keep it for later, dangling it over his head until it's employed to its fullest destructive effect, taunting him, _ridiculing_ him?

The desk top is a blurry mess, the inkwell and the cursed telephone and the little shelf with the separate sections for outgoing mail and unanswered correspondence coming back into focus only slowly, too slowly almost for him to realise that… there is… a third envelope wedged in between the two bills that he put there this morning. He makes a grab for it almost wildly, and there it is, Richard's letter, folded neatly back into its cover and – there's no other way to explain this – hidden deliberately among his business papers to save it from prying eyes.

The relief that floods Thomas is almost as intense as his panic. It takes a while for his fingers to stop trembling, even after he's stuffed the letter deep into his inner breast pocket, terrified of parting with it again even for a single moment. He should _burn_ the dratted thing. If only he could bring himself to do it.

At dinner in the servants' hall, he briefly considers asking casually who exactly it was that rang the hospital this afternoon. But he knows that he couldn't bring himself to look whoever it was in the eye, so he keeps quiet. Nobody else brings it up, either.

 _I am sorry I caused you to panic,_ Richard apologises when he hears of this. _As I told you on our return trip from York, I have - by the grace of God, or whichever entity is responsible for these things – so far never come to anyone's attention in that sense, and I keep forgetting what it must feel like if you have. Looking back, it was utterly thoughtless of me to write what I did. I won't say it won't happen again, but it certainly won't until I've found a way to convey my meaning in a manner that doesn't rely on the magnanimity of your fellow workers to save the day. I am astounded, quite frankly, that the matter has resolved itself like this. Nobody here where I am would pass up an opportunity to gain that kind of leverage over another person. What a different world you live in. I knew already after the few days I'd spent at Downton that you would take the proverbial bullet for your people, but it warms my heart to know for a fact now that they would do the same for you. I hope you see now how blessed you are._

 _I think the main reason why we at Downton are no longer at each other's throats is simply that there are only so few of us left,_ Thomas writes back after – not exactly wiping away a tear, but something very close to it. _Back in the day, there was a much higher turnover, and every time there was a vacancy, there would be at least two or three people waiting in the wings, ready to scratch each other's eyes out in order to get there first. It's just not like that any more. My first footman's dearest ambition in life is to marry our undercook and become a pig breeder. My second footman is nineteen years old and still so proud of his current livery that I suspect he sleeps in it and then gets up an hour early every morning to iron out the creases. By the time he could start jockeying for my position in earnest, this place will be an hotel or a school or a museum. Until then, I won't let things slide, and I want them, too, to strive for the pride that comes with any job well done. But why should they believe that a lifetime spent in service is a future worth selling their own grandmother for, and why should I scold them like a bunch of ungrateful brats if they don't? We represent a bygone age, Richard. I didn't expect to say this even before my fortieth birthday, but that's how it is. So we might as well huddle around the camp fire together in peace and quiet and let the wolves howl in the distance. No point in doing the snarling and mauling ourselves._

 _You're mostly right about all of that, I'm sure,_ Richard replies, _except for one thing. I stand by what I said. The main reason why the servants' hall of Downton in 1927 is not the the servants' hall of Downton in 1912 any more, Thomas, is you._

* * *

Darkness has crept up on them and the street lamps are on outside when their afternoon together draws to its inevitable close. Three whole hours that belong to them and them alone, carved from one of the quieter days between Christmas and New Year's, in the Ellises' otherwise empty house in York. They've used their time well, so well that they're both pleasantly sleepy now, half seated and half stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room. They're mostly dressed again but still in their shirtsleeves, Richard's head and shoulders a comfortable weight against Thomas' chest, their legs tangled together.

"You know what I want?" Richard asks quietly, a finger drawing idle ornaments on Thomas' thigh. "I want to walk you to the station, I want to kiss you goodbye on the platform, and I want to wave until the train turns the corner."

"Mmh. Never mind." They have already got a lot of what they've spent the past half a year wanting, and Thomas is in no mood to complain.

"And you know something else?" Richard continues. "I don't want to go back."

This does make Thomas frown. "Hang on, that's my line." He glances across to where the rain is lashing the windows, then at the mantel clock. "Be glad it's not you who has to go out there and brave the elements in twenty minutes' time."

"Twenty-five," Richard corrects him automatically.

Oh, confound it. Richard has of course warned Thomas that all the clocks in the Ellises' house are five minutes fast on purpose, as this is the only way Mrs Ellis can keep her menfolk in line. Thomas promptly called it a sacrilege to make a functioning clock deliberately display the wrong time, and he's still a bit miffed that Richard only grinned at that.

Richard is not grinning now. "No, I mean it." He reaches across and gently puts his right hand over Thomas' gloved left where it rests on his chest, warming it from both sides. "I keep thinking of what you wrote a while ago about your Downton camp fire. Laugh at me if you like, but I sometimes dream of joining you there. You know, warm my hands over it, watch the firelight flicker across your face…"

"I wish there was a way," Thomas agrees, both mollified and saddened by the longing in Richard's voice. "I'm not sure how I'd smuggle you in, though. You've met our lordship's valet. I've wasted years of my life trying to usurp his position, and all I ever got for my efforts was a bloody nose."

"Oh, I dare say."

But it is nice to pretend for a moment that this is not just a fantasy. "Maybe you could be our third footman," Thomas suggests. "Not that we can actually afford the two that we have."

Richard grimaces. "Uh, thank you kindly. I'm a tailor, not a piece of furniture."

"I love the respect you have for my profession. What am I right now, your deck chair?"

Richard shifts, and Thomas narrowly avoids a poke in the ribs from his elbow. He scoffs, but moves obligingly so Richard can settle against him again. He rather likes being Richard's deck chair, if he's honest. He may get pins and needles in his left leg soon, where it's stuck between Richard's and the back of the sofa, but he knows better than to give the tailor in his arms the opportunity for a godawful pun.

"Maybe I can just be an honorary member of your camp," Richard circles back when they've rearranged themselves around each other. "With a little patch of ground nearby, where I can pitch my own tent and come visiting. What I meant is, I don't want to go back to London."

"I thought you liked London."

"I do, or I used to. I've always felt freer there, more myself, more like anything's possible… And it used to be true. But I feel that's changing. These days, I don't really see the possibilities. Don't want to see them, even."

Richard sounds… not resigned exactly, but there's certainly something brewing here that's news to Thomas, that Richard hasn't mentioned in his letters.

"The thing is," Richard muses, and he starts toying with a fold of Thomas' sleeve as if he's suddenly a bit nervous, "I sometimes feel like I'm drifting when I'm up there now, and after today, it's only going to get worse. So I've been thinking that it might be time to… come into port, as it were."

"You said forty."

"I know. And that's not so far off now. But my father's getting on, and my brother-in-law could certainly do with an extra pair of hands here at the shop sooner rather than later. Mind you, it's not going to happen overnight. But it was always going to happen, and I'm starting to wonder what exactly I'm waiting for."

Thomas is quiet for so long that Richard tilts his head back to look up into his face. The truth is, Thomas is lost – lost in a daydream that is quite frankly too good to believe. This beautiful human being, always within reach? Barely an hour away instead of the current four-and-three-quarters, and his own master, too, free to come and go as he pleases? More afternoons like this one, _often_ , not a luxury they can only afford two or three times a year?

"Thomas? Are you there?

Thomas blinks, and the doubts come crowding in at once. Don't do this, he wants to protest. Not for me. I warned you that I bite, didn't I, and I bite hard enough to draw blood, my own more often than not. To think that Richard might commit himself and then regret… But Richard knows this. He's seen the scars now, all of them, and didn't shy away, only held Thomas closer.

"Is that a promise?" Thomas hears himself ask, much against his better judgment, but there's a tiny bud of hope blossoming in his chest, and the words are out before he knows it.

"Oh, are we still doing the crossword? In that case, ten across: Do you want it to be?"

He's smirking, the rascal. If Thomas wasn't so firmly trapped under Richard's solid weight already, the man would be in for a bit of a tumble now. Maybe they _should_ fight it out, with whoever comes out on top winning the right to be answered first.

It's a kiss that settles the matter in the end, and when Thomas reluctantly pulls away again, Richard's grin has given way to that tender smile that stole Thomas' heart last summer and will keep stealing it over and over again.

"So's that your answer?" Richard murmurs. "Let me guess, three letters, and the first one is a Y?"

"Clever you," Thomas whispers back. "Except now you can't say the same to me."

"Why not?"

"Can't have the same answer in a crossword twice. It's against the rules."

"So what? We're against the rules anyway. I mean it, Thomas. Let's not waste any more time."

In the end, Thomas has to run to catch his train back to Downton, but he doesn't even mind. He has, as Richard also put it months ago already, not felt this alive in a long time, either.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Say hello on Tumblr @jolie-goes-downton! 
> 
> Looking for transcripts of the Season 4, 5 and 6 episodes of Downton Abbey for your own writing projects? Find them [here!](https://jolie-black.livejournal.com/11071.html)


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